Morningstar, Inc.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Morningstar, Inc. (NASDAQ: MORN) is a provider of independent investment research in the United States and in major international markets.
The company offers Internet-, software-, and print-based products and services for individuals, financial advisors, and institutional clients. Morningstar provides data on more than 125,000 investment offerings, including stocks, mutual funds, and similar vehicles. The company has operations in 16 countries.
The company was partially backed by SoftBank until May 2005 when the initial public offering resulted in SoftBank selling all of its shares. The majority of the shares of Morningstar are still held by Joe Mansueto (Founder, CEO) at roughly 70% (as of June 2006) and the remaining 30% are owned by insiders and investors. The manner in which Morningstar went public is notable. They elected to follow Google's footsteps and use the dutch auction method rather than the traditional method. This allowed individual investors to bid on the price of the stock, and allowed all investors equal access.
Morningstar created its Morningstar Rating rating service, Morningstar Style Box and other lesser known proprietary measures in order to assist individual investors in understanding their investments. Morningstar provides valuable free tools to individual investors on each of its regional websites.
Morningstar representative Don Phillips also figured prominently in the 2004 Senate hearings on how to correct some actions performed by many investment companies, brokerage companies, and ultimately mutual fund companies with respect to market timing Arbitrage.
[edit] See also
- Standard & Poor's
- Moody's
- Fitch Ratings
- A.M. Best
- Dominion Bond Rating Service
- Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations
- Reuters
- Bloomberg L.P.
